


Fleeting Acquaintance at the End of the World

by amp_rs_nd



Series: Cardinal Fury (OC story) [1]
Category: Original Work, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Entirely Self-Indulgent, Gen, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Not Beta Read, Rated T for swearing, Set during the apocalypse, The Buried Fear Domain (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28885449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amp_rs_nd/pseuds/amp_rs_nd
Summary: Reid and Lenny accidentally stumble into a world during one of its darkest ages. There, they meet the harbinger of that new world and his companion, and together they have a time drawing similarities between their respective situations.This is mainly me having self-indulgent fun with character interactions, with just a smidge of Buried content sprinkled in.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Original Male Character(s), Martin Blackwood & Original Male Character(s), Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Cardinal Fury (OC story) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125203
Kudos: 3





	Fleeting Acquaintance at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY EXPLANATION: There are some coincidental and oddly specific similarities between my OCs and TMA, but I swear that most of the things explored here with my original work were decided before I even knew that TMA was a thing that existed.  
> I sorta just cranked this out and it's barely edited so quality is definitely not a guarantee.  
> Anyways. Enjoy!
> 
> CW: Being buried alive (character escapes mostly unharmed)

The wasteland Reid now walks is unlike any he’s ever seen before. The bare dirt ground is flat and churning in swirls that make a sound distinctly similar to that of human screams, and a murky green tinge blankets the horizon. Most concerning is the horde of giant eyeballs that watch from above. 

Lenny watches this phenomenon carefully from the corner of his eye. The two of them know that this is hardly the most unusual thing they’ve come across, but it may very well be the most concerning. Naturally, it affects Reid on a deeper level, the weight of the sky’s gaze cutting to the bone, but for Lenny, it’s more or less the same as he’s grown used to in the years since his Becoming. Lenny’s trauma surrounding eyes has affected him in an unusual sort of twisted way, but Reid’s learned not to question it, just as he’s learned not to question the inherent nature of any new worlds the two of them manage to find themselves blundering through in a tizzy. 

“Eyes, then,” Reid chuckles, aiming for levity. He trudges side-by-side with his taller compatriot, the two of them glowing with some sort of holy power. “Thought I’d had enough of those for one lifetime.”

“You have no idea,” Lenny responds with a tentative smile. It’s honestly admirable that Lenny’s not gotten sick of any of Reid’s eye-related friendly jabs, but he’s managed to at least learn to tolerate such behavior. It’s more of a coping mechanism for Reid’s guilt and discomfort than it is an assurance towards Lenny himself. “These ones are green, though — I honestly didn’t think they came in that color.”

Reid’s eyebrow arches curiously, coaxing another amused snort from Lenny. “ _I_ have green eyes.”

“First of all, your eyes aren’t evil parasites, so they don’t count. Second, your eyes are _hazel_ , love. It’s not the same.”

“Hey, I’d say it’s close enough. If there’s at least a little green in it, it should count as green.”

Lenny laughs uproariously. “Basically _every_ color has ‘at least a little green’ in it, though?”

Proper confused, Reid’s drops the taunting charade. “Wait… seriously?”

Lenny opens his mouth to respond again, but is immediately cut off by a visible cringe. He doubles over and sputters as the full force of some emotion rolls over him. Reid’s seen this plenty of times before, and unfortunately, the impact Lenny’s abilities have held over him have only increased with time. His abilities to sense and experience, interpret, and reciprocate the emotions of others on a massive scale has been a lifesaver in some instances, but a hindrance in others. This seems to be one of the more negative impacts of his abilities, as Lenny continues to keel over, shakily lowering himself to the ground and resting there.

“Wow, that…” Reid looks over Lenny’s trembling face, his wide, haunted eyes, and swallows, unsettled. “That looks like a lot. Are you—”

“It’s… it’s fear,” Lenny spits out, slowly turning his head back to Reid and making direct eye contact. “There’s… there’s so much of it here, I… I’ve never felt this before.”

Upon making eye contact, Reid is able to experience a fraction of the raw emotion he knows his husband must be feeling, and that alone is enough to make his knees weak. What follows after is an overwhelming feeling of pity, and Lenny must pick up on that from Reid, because before he’s able to reach out to help Lenny steadies himself upwards again.

“It’s fine,” Lenny murmurs, mostly to himself. “It’s… it’s fine. We should just get out of here.”

Reid nods in agreement, making that gentle eye contact that is carefully reserved for only the most delicate situations. The two of them continue their trek forwards, although now more quiet and solemn than before. Reid fiddles with the green flame between his fingers, beginning to wind it into the shape of a spell to send them both back home, but slows to a halt as he notices the sudden absence of Lenny beside him.

Panicked, Reid whirls around, scanning the landscape around him. A shout begins to make its way up his throat, but he bites it back when out of completely nowhere, a chorus of deafening, wretched screaming erupts from the ground beneath him. The ground shifts with the sound, and as the dirt churns, his feet begin to sink into it. He screams, but it’s easily drowned out in the ocean of terror surrounding him.

He’s up to his neck in mud and has just kicked shins with another submerged human body when a large hand grapples onto his own. It’s soft, calloused, and unfamiliar, but as the body beneath him latches its own hand around his ankle, he takes what he can get and grips tighter. Eyes glued shut with dirt and tears and still screaming hoarsely, inch by inch this unfamiliar hand drags him out of the mud. Finally, left leg bruised by the force of the grip underneath him, Reid kicks his legs frantically and wiggles atop the earth like a worm. Almost as if on cue, the screaming ceases alarmingly suddenly, and the ground halts and hardens once more.

“Fuck!” Reid sobs, finally dropping the saving hand and crawling up in a fetal position. The hand still latched onto his shin grips even harder, and the pressure makes him convulse in pain. Distantly, voices babble on above him.

“It’s still got his leg!” Lenny says, voice shaking with worry and the overwhelming fear that still courses through his veins. Reid still can’t open his eyes, but he can feel Lenny’s gentle hands running up and down his back in an attempt to soothe. As always, it’s quite effective. “Someone get it off of him!”

“On it,” a new, higher voice responds. Moments later, a loud crunching noise punches through the air accompanied by a muffled groan, and the harsh, bony hand releases quickly. With the freedom, Reid uncurls slightly and heaves upward, gasping for air. Reluctantly, he allows himself to squint open his eyes.

The first thing he notices is that the eyes in the sky above are now observing him with renewed interest, and it would be unbearable if not for the presence of who is crouching directly above Reid’s head, staring down at him just as intently. The man is short, with long, scraggly hair and ragged scars adorning every inch of his skin. The thick yarn scarf around his neck matches the one worn by the other new character, who’s circled around from stomping on the buried body to rest a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. This other man is round and tall, so much so that his silhouette blocks many of the eyes from view. As he does so, Reid swears he hears a hissing noise from the very air around him.

And of course, Lenny, with his warm brown face and worried and wrinkled brow, leans over Reid from the opposite side to examine his face more closely.

“Are you alright?” Lenny asks, his frown creasing his face in a wholly unpleasant way. Unlike the two strangers, who are both coated nearly head to toe in blood and dirt, Lenny only has rapid smears of it trailing across his clothes and cheeks.

In lieu of a response, Reid savors the feeling of another whole fresh breath of air in his lungs — something he’d never thought about losing until now.

“That was close,” the larger stranger muses. “Any further than that, and we might not have been able to get him out.”

“He would have been fine.” The smaller man narrows his eyes, gaze never leaving Reid’s face. “I don’t know _what_ he is, but it isn’t human.”

“Hey.” Reid forces himself unceremoniously to more of a squatting position. He grimaces as he does and it makes his lips curl. “You’re not wrong, but then I would’ve been stuck down there, which is a fate _much_ worse than death, _trust_ me.”

The large stranger shoots Lenny a questioning look, and he shrugs back, wearing a sheepish smile. “Don’t question it. We come from a long was off.”

“I can certainly tell,” the smaller man says, doing nothing to attempt to shield the dubiety in his voice, but with the squeeze of a hand on his shoulder he sighs and loosens somewhat. For the first time in what feels like ages his eyes leave Reid’s, and Reid feels like he can breathe again.

Lenny holds an arm out for Reid and hefts him the rest of the way up, then turns to fully face the two strangers. “I’m sorry, you just saved my Reid from being buried alive, and I still haven’t asked for your names.”

“To be fair,” the large one says with a smile, “There were more pressing issues at hand.” He holds a hand out to Lenny, and he takes it, shaking firmly. “Martin. And this here is Jon, the Archivist — you might have heard of him, actually.”

Lenny’s smile falters the slightest bit. “No, sorry… like I said, we’re not from around here.”

Martin raises his eyebrows in disbelief. “Okay, yeah, but you must have at least…” He turns to face Jon, as if expecting an answer. Jon’s face visibly softens as it meets Martin’s, but he slowly shakes his head.

“No, Martin, trust me, it’s not…” Jon levels another steely glare at Reid before continuing, “I’m not able to Know much about them at all.”

“Oh,” Martin says, drawing out the ‘o’, then looks back to Reid and Lenny. “Weird. That’s… huh.”

The pain in Reid’s leg flares up out of nowhere, and he screws his eyes shut. “Can we please get out of the screaming murder field before it tries to eat us again?” Jon actually snorts a laugh at the wording, but when Reid opens his eyes again to shoot him a sharp glare, he sobers and mirrors a similar look of disdain.

Martin, on the other hand, shrugs agreeably. “Fair enough.” He nudges Jon in the side just enough to jar him out of his staring contest with Reid, and soon enough he’s leading the three of them out and away to a noticeably more solid horizon.

* * *

“I’ve got bandages,” Martin says, shucking a frankly empty backpack off his shoulder, letting it hit the wonderfully solid new ground. The four of them have taken respite within the walls of an abandoned stone house, the wooden floorboards creaking with every step. Lenny had taken extra care to lay a few layers of old bedding on the floor for Reid to sit on, and the leverage of his ankle atop an old flannel pillow is, he has to admit, is helping at least a little. 

Reid looks to Martin and offers a grateful smile, although it must come out wrong because he wilts a little at the sight. “Yeah, that’d be great, I think. Thanks.”

The wounds on Reid’s ankle are nothing more than deep imprints of uncut fingernails where they dug into his skin, and upon cleaning them up it occurs to Reid how fascinating it is that he reacted so strongly to this injury when he’s certainly dealt with much worse in the past. Instead of mulling over that any longer than necessary, as Martin gets to work wrapping Reid lifts his gaze to take another peek at Jon…

…To see him staring intently at the back of Lenny’s head. _God, what is it with that man and staring?_

“What is it with you and staring?” He blurts before he can help himself. He cringes at the bluntness of it, but Jon doesn’t seem to mind, instead shifting his eyes ever so slightly to take hold of Reid, and all of the sudden he’s pinned by that gaze again.

“I am the Archivist,” Jon responds slowly and deliberately, with no amount of hesitation, droning on as if he’s said it hundreds of times before. Then, more indignantly: “It’s what I _do_.”

“Yes, of course it is, dear,” Martin mutters, blindly reaching out a placating hand to pat Jon’s knee without losing focus on Reid’s leg. Jon grumbles at the comment but does drop Reid’s gaze.

“It’s got something to do with the eyes, doesn’t it?” Lenny says, looking right at Jon as he does so, and of course when they make eye contact, for the first time Reid’s ever seen when Lenny’s met new people, neither of them flinch in the slightest.

“Yes…” Jon squints, and the green glow of his eyes grows ever brighter. “In fact, although I can’t Know much about you, I can tell there’s something sort of similar happening with you, too.”

“You could say that,” Reid says with some cross between amusement and resentment in his voice. Martin stares at him quizzically, and quickly finishes wrapping Reid’s ankle just to sit upright and scooch over besides Jon, dropping his chin onto the palm of the hand not wrapped around the other man’s shoulders.

“So, where _are_ you from, anyway?” Martin asks as Lenny rushes to fill in the gaping space beside Reid atop the blankets. “It’s not common we come across people who _don’t_ know who we are. Not— not that I’m complaining, of course!” Martin is quick to clarify, raising his hands in front of him defensively. “It’s just that, Jon has a tendency to feature in most of the nightmares around here these days. You really must have missed something important if we haven’t been recognized.”

“Yeah, well…” Reid sucks an awkward breath through his teeth. “Honestly, we didn’t mean to end up here. Usually, whatever’s happening on other planets is none of our business… I must have tripped into here, and Lenny just followed me.”

Lenny pats on his back reassuringly. “Yep, that’s pretty much what happened. You know I wasn’t going to just leave you, though. I know better than to leave you alone like that again.”

“Sorry, did you say other planets?” Martin cuts in, incredulity soaking his features. Jon glances between the two of them with a similarly wide-eyed look. “So, are you from, um… are you, like, are you from… space, or, or something?”

Reid barks out a laugh as Lenny responds, completely seriously, “Kind of, yeah.” Reid gives him a look for that, and he shrugs defensively. “What? That’s what it is, isn’t it? And it’s how you explained it to me the first time.”

Reid hums and shrugs himself. “Yeah, fair enough.” He turns his attention back to Martin. “Yeah. Okay. So, in short: yes, we’re from space. But not in the sci-fi sort of sense you’re probably thinking. It’s… it’s a whole thing, actually? And I don’t think it’d help for me to try to explain it.”

“I don’t think so,” Jon says, “There wouldn’t be much of a point to it, so let’s not do that. You…” He looks between Reid and Lenny, biting his lip. “You… do know how to leave, right?”

“Oh, yeah, I think so,” Lenny nods, pointing a backhanded thumb to Reid, who weaves a thin strand of green flame out of thin air to demonstrate. Martin’s eyes widen at that, but Jon looks on unimpressed. “But…” The fire dissipates as Reid shoots Lenny a wary look. “I… don’t think we should be leaving just yet. I’m worried that with his injured ankle, Reid would only trip. Again.”

“Wow, thanks,” Reid snorts, but he goes to make deliberate eye contact with Lenny and can’t help but flinch at the pure fear he feels reflected through the other’s eyes. “But I can see how this place affects you. It wouldn’t be fair to you if we stayed.”

“What do you mean?” Jon questions with a hungry glint in his eye. Martin glances at him from the side and grimaces.

“Jon, I really don’t think you should be—”

“No, no,” Lenny waves away his concern with a stiff hand. “It’s alright, I’m willing to share.”

Martin’s gaze flicks over to Lenny in consideration, but returns to Jon just as quickly. “What about nightmares. Would this be a statement?”

Jon shakes his head as if clearing fog from his mind, and his gaze clears a bit. “Uh… no, not if I phrase it properly. Or just keep my mouth shut. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Reid narrows his eyes. “Nightmares?”

“Here,” Martin offers out, “How about this: you share your story, we share ours. Seems fair enough, right?”

Jon scoffs. “Absolutely n—”

“—Yes, that sounds great,” Lenny says with a smile. Jon grumbles, glaring at Martin with no heat behind it, and crosses his arms, leaning back against the cold wall behind him. Martin himself settles back as well, tightening his arm’s grip around Jon. On the other hand, Reid and Lenny themselves both tense up and sit up straighter. Lenny catches Reid out of the corner of his striking pink eyes and nods encouragingly.

“Where we come from — actually, I guess it’s also where we are now, sort of, except nothing you could realistically see from here —” Jon glares impatiently at Reid as he rambles on, and being as tired as he is all he can think to do is glare right back. “There are these beings known as the Divine Eyes. They’re… evil, at least compared to what we are, which is… uh, which is Gods. They don’t like us very much, for the most part.”

“Sorry—” Awkwardly raising a hand, then blushing at the juvenility of the gesture, Martin cuts in. “You said gods? You two are… you’re gods.”

“Yeah.”

Jon raises his eyebrows. “They’re telling the truth.”

“Huh,” says Martin, mirroring Jon’s own expression. “Okay, then. Honestly, I shouldn’t be so surprised, given everything we’ve been through.” Jon snorts a laugh at that. 

“In short, the leader of one of the Eye colonies held a grudge against me and my family, and decided to target me in order to get back at my son for crossing him,” Lenny continues. “The Eyes in our worlds are parasites, kind of. Magnus implanted himself in my head and semi-controlled me for months. We were able to get him out in the end, but the whole experience left me with these weird powers.”

“And trauma,” Reid tacks on, and Lenny sighs.

“Yes, and extensive trauma, although I’d really rather not get into that right now.”

“Sorry, what was his name again?” Martin asks. Both him and Jon are staring between them with a look of slack-jawed shock on their faces.

“Uhh, Magnus.”

Martin swallows and slowly turns to shoot Jon a bewildered look, which he reciprocates before leaning towards Reid and Lenny, his hands planted firmly on his knees. “So, to be clear: you were manipulated and controlled by an evil eye named Magnus and left the experience with supernatural eye-centric abilities?” At Lenny’s prudent nod, Jon barks out an incredulous laugh and leans back again. “Funny. So was I.”

Lenny blinks. “Sorry, what?”

“Y-yes. Different situations, I’d hope, but none of this—” he waves his hands about, gesturing to the world at large— “would have happened if not for what Jonah Magnus did to me. It’s honestly a bit jarring to hear that something so similar happened to you. I don’t suppose there was an apocalypse involved for you as well?”

“Honestly, I’m not really sure,” Lenny shrugs. “His motivations were unclear. If he did have any specific plans for me, he didn’t share out. It was sort of interesting, actually, witnessing him doing what he did,” Reid cringes slightly at the usage of the word ‘interesting’ but Lenny continues regardless, “because his growing power was reliant on my humanity, but the more time I spent with him the less human I became? I don’t, I don’t know,” he waves his hands around self-consciously. “He’s dead anyways, so it doesn’t matter.”

“How about you, then?” Reid asks the other two. “Is your Magnus dead too? If he’s anything like ours then the bitch deserves it.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Martin sighs. “He has a history of being pretty difficult to get rid of. He’s more than a couple hundred years old at this point.”

“Ours was more like 100 billion.” Martin’s eyes widen again, and Reid sticks his tongue out before continuing. “Disgusting little bastard. Wish he could have died sooner.”

“Divine Eyes don’t die easily,” Lenny elaborates. “They only have one weakness, really, which is sound. It’s too bad since it means I’m not able to go to concerts or anything like that anymore, since I’m technically part Eye.”

“Oh, how sad for you,” Jon drawls, voice dripping with sarcasm. Martin nudges him sharply in the side like a warning.

“ _Hey_ ,” Lenny snaps, demeanor dropping sharply to something much more solemn. “You don’t even know the half of it. I’m _sorry_ for trying not to subject you to the gorier details.” His eyes, laden with mellow anger, lock onto Jon’s, and for the first time all day Jon does shudder a bit at the sight.

The rest of them cringe at the confrontation. Reid pats Lenny’s knee reassuringly, and Jon at least has the decency to look apologetic.

“…Okay,” Jon murmurs. “I am sorry. It’s not a competition or anything, so I apologize if I gave that impression. I suppose… I’ve been having a bit of a time of things. With all of… all of _this_. But that’s no excuse to treat you unfairly.”

Lenny’s face soften, and he looks away. “Thanks. But I guess I shouldn’t have assumed about your situation, either.”

“Yeah,” Reid pipes up, “What the hell happened here? To get the world to… this?”

“The apocalypse,” Jon and Martin say in unison, though they give no reaction to having done so.

“Our Magnus — Jonah, that is,” Jon continues, “Set me up for all this, basically. He had a plan, and I was— I was at the center of it all, without really knowing it. It’s… my fault this all happened,” he breathes out with a sigh, “and I feel awful about it. If only I could have stopped the ritual…”

“There was nothing we could have done,” Martin intercepts. “We had no idea what we were playing into. It’s easy to blame your naivety in hindsight,” he tightens his grip around Jon’s torso, “but that’s just a coping strategy. There’s no use blaming our past selves for not knowing what we had no way of knowing.”

“I can relate to that,” Reid says, and Lenny shoots him a sympathetic look. “Lenny suffered by Magnus’ hand for _months_ , and myself and my friends had no idea. I feel so stupid for not knowing, looking back.” He squeezes his eyes tightly shut. “It was so damn _obvious_ and I ignored it.”

“After I pulled you out of the Lonely,” Jon says, directed at Martin, “I felt that way, too. If I’d realized that all it would have taken to get you out would’ve been the power of ‘true love’, I would have done so sooner. I was just… scared, maybe? Afraid you didn’t love me like that anymore. Which is a _horrible_ excuse, I know.” It’s Jon’s turn to screw his face up. “Peter hurt you so badly, and I let it happen. I don’t know if I’ve said, but I hate myself for doing that. You needed me, and I didn’t try hard enough to get you back.”

Martin bites the inside of his cheek, carefully constructing his response. “To be fair, if you’d have tried to get to me back then like you did in the Lonely, it probably would’ve made things worse.” He sighs. “Apart from the numbness, all I could really feel was… the _anger_. You would have offended me one way or another, regardless of whether or not you meant to. I think your timing was crucial.” Jon looks devastated, but Martin shrugs it off. “Could I have died if you’d come any later? Yes, I’m sure I could have. But, I didn’t. And that’s all that matters now.”

The two of them stare at each other in tender silence before Martin spreads his arms wide and Jon collapses into them. Reid, in turn, hugs his chest and curls into himself a bit, but when Lenny also wraps his arms around him in a hug, he relaxes and provides a grateful smile that no one else can see. When Jon and Martin loosen up and Jon remains there limp, rolling his head to the side so he can see Reid and Lenny again, Reid swallows and tilts his head towards Martin.

“What was it you said about that place? The… the Lonely?” Martin hums and raises his eyes while Jon scowls, so Reid takes that as a cue to continue. “What was it like?”

Jon grumbles, “It’s none of your—”

“ _Jon_ ,” Martin cuts him off, and Jon turns his scowl onto Martin, but he doesn’t react to it. “It’s alright, I really don’t mind.” He turns back to Reid with a huff. “To make a long story short, this whole time we’ve been at the whims of these… fear entities. There are fourteen or fifteen of them, and the Eye is what’s got Jon at the moment, and it has some of me, too, I guess. But for the past few months, I’ve mainly been with the Lonely.” Reid just stares, so after a few moments he continues. “It’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Jon argues. “It stems from loneliness, sure, but it’s more than that. It’s fog, mist, empty ocean shores…” Martin shivers, and Jon frowns at it. “Sorry. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s a, a very real and very serious thing. I’ve seen what it’s done to _this on_ e firsthand. So, no, it’s _not_ exactly what it sounds like.”

“It sounded like it was a place, too.” Reid leans forward, invested. “Is that right?”

“I don’t understand why this has suddenly become an _interrogation_ ,” Jon snaps, and Martin opens his mouth but Jon barrels on before he can intervene. “But, yes, I guess part of it is. These fears, they don’t— they don’t always make linear, logical sense. The Lonely is just as much an evil fear god as it is a place created by and part of an evil fear god.”

“I guess so.” Reid sighs heavily and lolls his head over towards Lenny with a heavy exhale. “You know, I told you something similar when you followed me after that fight with SIME? Found me in a crisp, not-quite place?”

Lenny frowns. “I guess, but it really should have been more real. We were still in the Heavenland, after all, weren’t we?” Reid shrugs tiredly and Lenny’s eyebrows hike up his forehead. “What, you think we hallucinated the whole thing?”

“So you have Lonely experience, too, then?” Martin cuts in, making sympathetic eye contact with Reid. The gesture catches him off guard, but he relaxes as he receives it.

“…I guess so. I mean, obviously we don’t have _fear gods_ back home, I think I of all people would know if that were the case, but… the basic concept remains the same.” He sighs and slumps down even further. “The place itself actually seemed almost opposite to what you alluded to. We were out in a large field between colorful forests, and the air was dry, and the clarity was just— _astounding_. You could easily see for miles and miles in all directions.”

“Clarity? Isn’t that the opposite of loneliness? You’d think it would want you to be concealed.”

“Maybe sometimes it would,” Reid shrugs, “but in my case I think it made sense. The whole point was to make me wholly aware of just how alone I was. It was the middle of nowhere; what better way to convince me I was alone than to _show_ it?” Reid bits his lip and his gaze flicks down. “And on top of that, when Lenny did eventually show up, it did whatever it could to keep me from noticing him. If he came into my awareness at all or tried to touch, my feet would carry me away, regardless of whether or not I wanted it.”

“That’s really very interesting,” Jon muses, and his eyes are bright and glimmering. “I hadn’t previously considered it from that perspective.”

“It’s on a different level than it seems you’re used to, and again, I hardly think it was the same thing.” Reid frowns. “For all I know, Lenny might be right and it _was_ just a shared hallucination. I don’t know if I’d actually be able to manifest that struggle of mine in such a real form. The most I can manifest is some fire that I then make do other stuff.”

“Still, it’s something to think about.” Jon hums, tapping his index finger against his bottom lip. Off in the distance, back from where the four of them came from, the screaming from the fields begins again, and Reid and Lenny both flinch together.

“Agh… _fuck_ ,” Lenny sputters, doubled over atop his folded knees and clutching the base of his head. “I’d hoped the flares would ease off the further away we got from there, but…”

“I’m sorry.” Jon heaves himself upwards, dusting his thighs to little effect, and Martin follows soon after. “I can tell all the fear here affects you, for whatever reason. I can assure you that no matter where you go, it stays. Most things in this world have been replaced by fear. Even time doesn’t work the way it used to.” Reid instinctively cranes his head to get a read on the sun’s position in the sky, but it of course remains absent and Jon tuts. “You two should get going before it hurts you even more than it already does.”

Reid is already helping Lenny to his feet, both hands braced against the other’s forearms. Reid purses his lips, and Lenny is quick to fill the silence. “I’m so sorry, that sounds horrible. I wish we could do something to help.”

The wan smile stretching on Jon’s face at that is only accented by the tired lines and glowing scars of his complexion as he mulls them both over again. “Me too. It’s for the best, though. Even if you could do anything, it’d be best if you didn’t. The last thing we want to do at this point is get anyone else involved.”

Reid hums in agreement and stoops back over to fiddle with his pant leg until it gracefully conceals the bandage and the slightest tinge of pea green peeking through the dirtied white. As soon as it’s satisfied, Lenny tugs prompting on his elbow to follow the other two out of the building. Out on the doorstep, the two pairs pause and look each other over one last time. Martin in particular glances playfully between the two of them, trying and failing to tamper down a smile. 

“If you want to notify some of your god friends about our situation and give a hint, though…” he says, rocking on the soles of his feet, and Jon laughs. “We wouldn’t mind the reinforcement.”

Lenny cracks a smile at that, and for the first time during this entire experience it reaches his eyes. He reaches a hand across the space hanging between them as if about to clamp a hand down on Jon’s shoulder, but thinks better of it soon enough, instead succumbing to a weak little wave. “We’ll keep that in mind. Please stay safe, you two.”

“Thanks… we’ll try,” Martin replies with a breathy, hopeless laugh.

“Good luck,” and Reid manages a final cordial nod in the awkward moment, regarding them both. “Jon. Martin.”

With that, the two pairs turn away simultaneously and start off in opposite directions, Reid and Lenny towards a clearing beside the house and Jon and Martin closer towards the Panopticon.

* * *

It takes what feels like thirty or so minutes of trudging in silence before one of them breaks it.

“You know, it’s maybe a little unsettling how well we took that,” Martin wonders aloud. Jon looks back at him curiously.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I mean, they claimed they fell in from another world _entirely_ —” with every point, Jon nods his head sharply and hums as confirmation— “that they were gods— and that they’ve had experiences with what sounds entirely similar to the Eye and the Lonely. And _then_ there was the fact that they had a Magnus ruining their lives, as well!” Martin tosses his arms into the air in front of him, voice heightened by a sense of exhausted wonderment. Jon, with his arms tightly crossed against his chest, nods and hums one last time before fixing his gaze back at his feet, kicking at the rocks and dirt ahead of them.

“I mean, it’s hardly the worst thing we’ve come across in our careers.”

Martin grimaces at that, but ultimately nods in agreement and lets his head hang down, as well. “Yeah, true.”

They linger in a few more moments of thoughtful silence, green mist on the horizon and a faint melody of far-off screams as the soundtrack, until Martin chuckles and tentatively grins. 

“Really wish they’d go on and tell the fear gods to bugger off, though,” he mumbles, but Jon picks it up under everything else and barks a sudden surprised laugh. 

Martin lifts his head back up and takes in the sight of Jon laughing — his dirt smeared nose smushed and crinkled with the upturn of his mouth, his eyebrows furrowed in an ever-present scrutiny, his eyes squeezed shut in a sight becoming rarer and rarer by the day — and convinces himself he wouldn’t much mind whether the world-hopping strangers got to doing that today, or tomorrow, or in months or years from now. If this is what he’ll get to have in the time being, then he thinks he could manage the wait.

* * *


End file.
